Worldwide IPTV subscription numbers grow 7% in 3rd quarter

14 января 2011

Year on year
growth rates of 6.7% have taken broadband subscription to 508,761,837 in the
third quarter of 2010, according to figures prepared by Point Topic and
announced by the Broadband Forum in its Global Broadband and IPTV Industry
Update. Over 14.3 million lines were added in the third quarter alone,
representing 2.88% growth over the previous quarter.

Whilst the
first three quarters of 2010 have generally been characterized by uneven growth
patterns, some countries stand out with exceptional growth – with China and
India both reporting their second best ever quarters in Q3. Vigorous growth was
generally concentrated in developing broadband markets, with India, Russia,
Vietnam, Ukraine and the Philippines all growing by more than 20% in the last
12 months.

Robin Mersh,
Chief Executive Officer of the Broadband Forum, said, "The patterns of
growth are shifting as some markets reach saturation and emerging markets show
remarkable growth rates over this year. In more and more countries we are
seeing more than 80% availability and huge take up of broadband. The
Broadband Forum celebrates this major achievement and continues to work towards
empowering new applications and developing enhanced deployment and management
solutions to support the broadband and IPTV industries.”

The new
figures show that China and the US continue to add more lines than any other
single market. Russia and Brazil, however, are the most rapidly growing in
percentage terms with 22% and 14% respectively. Asia continues to increase its
share of the total broadband lines in the world, adding more than double the
number of broadband lines per quarter than any other region.

Regional
Growth

In Asia,
more and more of the developing markets are starting to report significant
growth in broadband, with China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam and even
continued growth in South Korea all pointing to increased dominance in the
global market.

In Europe
the biggest gains are in Eastern Europe, although the region as a whole has
performed better in 2010 than in 2009 on a quarter by quarter basis with most
of the big markets showing improvement. With these strong numbers coming
from Eastern Europe, there is optimism that 2011 will continue a strong growth
trend for the region as a whole.

In the
Americas, we see renewed pickup, although it’s too early to say if this is the
start of a full blown recovery. In Canada especially there is little head
room for further growth as household penetration nears 90%. In South
America, Brazil and Mexico continuing to offer robust numbers while growth is
slow in some of their South and Central American neighbors.

The Middle
East and Africa region also shows steady growth rather than spectacular
numbers. While growth is strong in Egypt, Turkey and South Africa, there
are still impediments to adoption (mostly availability and cost) in much of
Africa. Once these are overcome we should see mass adoption become a
reality.

Technology
Overview

DSL remains
the dominant broadband technology worldwide. DSL is growing most rapidly
in Asia, driven by the relatively low up front costs and availability over
other technologies.
Fiber continues to grow its strong market share and for the first time we are
seeing notable growth in fixed wireless technologies.

“As demand
for broadband increases worldwide there is now a significant amount of ‘infill’
taking place. Many areas don’t have access to the infrastructure required
for fixed line broadband provision. There has been an increase in access
via technologies that don’t require wire of some description all the way to the
consumer,” says Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic.

IPTV Growth

The total
number of IPTV subscribers worldwide now stands at 41.9 million
(41,892,171), representing a growth of 7.3% (2.846 million net adds in
the quarter) in the three months to end September and 36.7% growth in the last
12 months (11.256 million net adds).

“IPTV has
grown solidly in the last 12 months. Perhaps more importantly the number
of markets and operators offering IPTV is increasing as high speed broadband
spreads around the world,” says John Bosnell, Senior Analyst at Point Topic. “With
TV being increasingly routed over IP networks, the broadband connection is
becoming an increasingly significant channel for video delivery. As a tool for
customer retention, as a prime mechanism for increasing ARPU, and as a means of
providing a distinctive offering to the competition, the bundling of IPTV with
a broadband subscription and voice is very attractive to ISPs.”

With 46%
market share, Europe continues as the leading IPTV region. But China is
fast catching up to France, the current world leader in terms of IPTV
subscribers, and at current growth rates China will overtake France sometime
during 2011. With this growth, Asia is rapidly closing the gap.

Broadband
Forum focus for 2011

To continue
to support the scale of subscriber growth, both in terms of the number of lines
and the speed of bandwidth, the industry needs the most efficient network
management possible, so that service providers can keep pace with opportunities
such as fixed mobile convergence, the rise in business broadband, Smart Grid
and the fully Connected Home. In all the excitement about new services,
applications and higher bandwidth provision, it is the network that must
deliver and this is a key area of work at the Broadband Forum.

Ongoing work
is also focused on defining the evolving end-to-end architecture, ensuring it
can support multiple services with quality of service including multi cast. As
part of our end-to-end approach, the Forum is defining MPLS core specifications
as well as access aggregation and local loop solutions (DSL, fiber, etc.), and
our Connected Home initiatives, built around TR-069, provide the essential
remote management standard for the industry.